What Are the Keys to Better Cognitive Health?
The topic of health can be a massive mountain to climb when there’s so many aspects of it that we feel we either need to tackle for the sake of our own sanity and health but also for the sake of our children. Looking after our children’s mental health can be a big task for us as parents, and this is before we even start tackling the concept of cognitive health. But the topic of cognitive health is arguably even more important than ever. With concerns about cognitive decline and stress coupled with an increasingly poor diet, it seems that we should be bringing the topic of cognitive health into the conversation. Cognitive health is critical for all of us, but what do we need to do to start stimulating our cognition better, especially in a post-pandemic world? And how can we ensure we preserve our brain health and improve it?
Are Supplements the Solution?
The fact is that supplements can be a massive rabbit hole when we talk about improving our overall ability to function. There can be so many approaches here, but what we need to remember is that supplements are there to supplement our food intake. You might look at the tesofensine benefits for something like mental health or even other positives of this supplement, like losing weight, but we should not be overly relying on supplements, especially if our new tuned intake is already poor.
In terms of brain health, we have to remember that the nerve cells and other cells in our brain are made up of fats. In fact, fat is the most important aspect of our brain function and we have to look at supplementing with fat but also look at it in the context of supporting our brain health. In terms of brain health, in addition to omega-3s, you should be looking at some of the following:
- Phosphatidylserine, which you can find in fish as well as cabbage.
- Choline, which you can find in eggs.
- Creatine is also another supplement that can support our brain health.
- Glutamine can also provide a positive impact by mitigating the negative effects of oxygen deprivation and is ideal if you experience sleep apnea, which you can find in eggs, fish, meat, as well as vegan sources like spinach and cabbage.
When it comes to supplementation, we have to look at our health in the round. If you are concerned about your own cognition, some of the best foods that enhance your cognition in the short-term and long-term include cabbage, cottage cheese, blueberries, eggs, and fish, but you’ve got to figure out the best ways to dial in your nutrition and then use supplements as back up.
Fixing Your Stress Levels
Stress is necessary in small doses. It’s hardwired into us to react to stress by running away and, as has been noted countless times in the modern world, that we are prolonging our exposure to stress which produces the hormone cortisol and is toxic to the brain. Therefore, it becomes essential for us to rein in our stress. If you are concerned that your brain is constantly set to frazzled, which a lot of people are in the modern world, we’ve got to start looking at our stress levels.
We are all living in a post-pandemic world which has meant that we’ve all experienced some levels of stress that we either feel inclined to ignore or we think it is better for us to push through. In a world where we are working a full-time job and we are also looking after children and everything else that comes with it, it’s natural that by the end of the day, we’re feeling burned out. There’s a reason why so many people are experiencing concerns with their mental health, and that’s partly because of a higher level of stress than ever. It is critical that we address this. And the best place to do it is by focusing on the tools that can help you zone out.
In fact, if you take the time to switch off every now and again, you are working out a different bit of the brain, the default mode network, and this is the part of the brain that enables us to daydream but it’s also critical to consolidate memories into your brain bank. So if you ever feel the inclination to daydream, it can benefit your brain. Additionally, you can find other approaches to managing stress that work for you, and there’s a lot of tools out there. These include:
- Grounding techniques for anxiety.
- Meditation.
- Breathing techniques.
- Indulging in yourself.
There’s a lot that we should be doing for the sake of our stress levels. The biggest issue most people have is that there is no time in which to do it properly. Rather than thinking that you don’t have the time, you should make it part of your daily practice to calm your stress levels because this will instantly result in better cognitive function.
The Importance of Physical Activity
It is a big part of boosting our brain power. Exercise creates what’s known as synapses, which foster more connections in our brain and stimulate the growth of extra cells. Taking it down to a base level, exercising is partly about stimulating cardiovascular health, which means you are carrying more nutrients around the body, including glucose and oxygen to the brain, and removing toxins. Exercise is critical, and the great thing is that exercise is something you can do in whatever way you want:
- Dancing.
- Weight training.
- Kettlebell workouts.
- Running with friends.
An added bonus is if you are trying to learn something, you should do it while you are moving around, which can help the information to stay put. There are many techniques used by actors to learn their lines, including using acronyms for the first letter of each word. For example, “I must be better at remembering” would be abbreviated to IMBBAR. Movement is used by actors to learn lines quickly, and one of the best ways to do this in super quick time is to take a line and move with each word.
For example, the line in Hamlet, “Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him well,” you would take a step on “alas” then you would go back and do two steps with “alas, poor” making sure you’ve taken a different direction on the second word, and then go back to the start and do three moves with “alas, poor Yorick,” etc. until you’ve done the entire thing. It may seem time-consuming, but if you have to learn things quickly, this is ideal. If you feel like you’ve got issues remembering things, don’t think that it’s just the way you are, you might just need to work a little bit harder than other people around you, and there’s no shame in this, as long as you have the right tools to help you remember.
Challenging Yourself in the Right Ways
If you’ve dialed in stress and you’ve got an abundance of exercise in your life, as well as having proper sleep, but there’s something not quite right, is it because you are actually bored in your existence? One of the best things we can all do to make sure that we are stimulating cognitive function is to challenge ourselves. It is about making sure that things are fun and allowing yourself to do things that make you want to build upon your brain function. There’s plenty of tactics out there. Some of the most common include:
- Sudoku.
- Crosswords.
- Learning and/or playing an instrument.
- Reading.
- And the list goes on.
It’s critical to challenge yourself. You might think that you’ve been living under a shell, especially in the last few years if you’re feeling overwhelmed. There’s a buzzword flying around at the moment known as hyper fatigue, which means that because we’re constantly looking at social media feeds and are stretching ourselves beyond our capabilities we are feeling burnt out. It’s just as important to make sure that you’re not overworking your brain in the wrong ways. Social media stimulates dopamine, which is the brain’s reward system, but if you are having an excess of dopamine this puts your brain and nervous system into an addictive state. It becomes very tough to break out of this approach and we can be bound by the stresses of the modern world. This makes it even more important that we learn how to switch off literally and figuratively every now and again.
When it comes to the topic of cognitive health, there are so many different approaches. There is the stress factor, there is the nutrient factor, and there’s supplements, but what we have to remember is that, if we are going to tackle this almighty subject, we do it in a way that we feel that we can benefit. We’ve barely touched on the topic of mental health as well, but if you can look at the areas where you are doing your health a disservice, this can help you to be better at protecting your faculties. We should be prioritizing our brain health, especially in a world of fatigue, brain fog, not to mention those that may have some form of long COVID. A mind truly is a terrible thing to waste.
